Twice, in all my childhood, a TV entered our house.
The first time was during the 2012 Summer Olympics. We’d borrowed an old screen from a friend – one of those boxy 13-inch TVs (the kind that, minus the off-screen dials, you might see Calvin watching in “Calvin and Hobbes”). My family propped the clunky device on the filing cabinet in our home office, and we watched wrestling and swimming from the mattress across the room.
The second time was in 2016. Same event – the Summer Olympics. We returned the TV shortly after each Olympics ended, and by 2020, we graduated to viewing our preferred events on our laptops.
To be clear, it’s not as though movies or entertainment beyond the Olympics never entered our house. We’d pull out a DVD player and projector to watch Christmas movies or “Anne of Green Gables,” and a show on the family laptop was my parents’ go-to when they left us, as older children, home alone. But at no point in my childhood was there a central screen consistently in my house. And quite honestly? I’m so thankful for that.
My relatively screen-free childhood gave me the opportunity to find other, creative ways to spend my time. It gave me the chance to explore – in the physical world and the intellectual one – without needing to be constantly entertained by someone or something else.
For instance, most of my free time was spent outside, playing with my brothers and the neighbor boy. We liked to make up games: One summer, for instance, we repurposed my dad’s abandoned swivel chair to play “Base Runner,” a game that involved running from “base” to “base” on the empty nearby parking lot, with variations on where you could run depending on where The Chair was at. Developing the game cultivated teamwork and creativity: together, we came up with the rules, negotiated who was “it” (they’d have to catch us between bases), and worked together to solve any problems with new rules.
Alongside our outdoor play, my family ventured weekly to the public library in quest of books. Often, we’d max out several of our library cards on books, filling beach-bag-sized totes with our finds and giving us ample reading for the rest of the week. I would then spend many an afternoon sprawled on the floor of our basement (often enjoying the cool after an intense game of “Base Runner”), reading whatever books I’d secured that week. In the end, that reading laid the groundwork for the intellectual and literary pursuits I’d invest in during college and beyond: studying philosophy, developing complex arguments, and falling in love with writing poetry.
Beyond that, growing up without television meant that, for both me and my siblings, movies or shows were automatically off our radar. Sure, they were fun when we got to see them, but they were never our default thought when we’d ask each other, “What should we do?” And that, I believe, was invaluable.
Screens weren’t meant to be the ceaseless white noise that they’ve become. We weren’t meant to spend hours per day on electronics – whether via television, our phones, or otherwise – and constantly receive entertainment rather than actively engage with the life that God has gifted us.
Do I think that visual entertainment is bad? Absolutely not. I’ve grown in my appreciation for the way that shared entertainment serves to connect people – through shared experiences, laughs, and, often, post-show humor. Certainly, there’s a time and a place for television.
But should visual entertainment, and electronics more broadly, occupy the seemingly omnipresent place that they do in our society? Should screens be our first instinct when we’re bored, restless, or struggling for connection? Again, absolutely not. There’s a deep value in using entertainment consciously, fighting the temptation to let it become white noise, and creatively finding joy in other things.
Of course, deciding not to own a television isn’t for everyone, nor should it be. But you – as a parent, grandparent, or simply a person who necessarily lives in community – can teach, by example, in other ways, a healthy relationship to technology. I’m so thankful that my parents did so for me.
This culture article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal, a project of 1819 News. To comment on this article, please email [email protected]. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News.
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